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Accepted Manuscript: Research in International Business and Finance

This document summarizes a research paper that examines the behavioral biases of individual investors in warrants. Specifically, it investigates how overconfidence, the disposition effect, and a gambling motive influence individual investors' propensity to invest and trade in warrants. The paper analyzes the actual trading behavior of individual investors in the Portuguese market over almost ten years. It finds that younger, less educated men are more likely to invest in warrants. Additionally, overconfident, disposition-prone, and investors with a gambling attitude are more likely to invest and trade warrants frequently. The gambling motive, in particular, distinguishes warrant investors as they prefer to trade complex products for pleasure rather than simpler instruments. Finally, behavioral biases like disposition and gambling have

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0% found this document useful (0 votes)
46 views35 pages

Accepted Manuscript: Research in International Business and Finance

This document summarizes a research paper that examines the behavioral biases of individual investors in warrants. Specifically, it investigates how overconfidence, the disposition effect, and a gambling motive influence individual investors' propensity to invest and trade in warrants. The paper analyzes the actual trading behavior of individual investors in the Portuguese market over almost ten years. It finds that younger, less educated men are more likely to invest in warrants. Additionally, overconfident, disposition-prone, and investors with a gambling attitude are more likely to invest and trade warrants frequently. The gambling motive, in particular, distinguishes warrant investors as they prefer to trade complex products for pleasure rather than simpler instruments. Finally, behavioral biases like disposition and gambling have

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Nida Asif
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Accepted Manuscript

Title: HOW BIASED IS THE BEHAVIOR OF THE


INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR IN WARRANTS?

Author: Margarida Abreu

PII: S0275-5319(18)30184-3
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2018.07.006
Reference: RIBAF 932

To appear in: Research in International Business and Finance

Received date: 27-2-2018


Revised date: 1-7-2018
Accepted date: 14-7-2018

Please cite this article as: Abreu M, HOW BIASED IS THE BEHAVIOR OF THE
INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR IN WARRANTS?, Research in International Business and
Finance (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ribaf.2018.07.006

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication.
As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript.
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apply to the journal pertain.
HOW BIASED IS THE BEHAVIOR OF THE
INDIVIDUAL INVESTOR IN WARRANTS?

Margarida ABREU1

Professor at ISEG – University of Lisbon

Researcher at UECE - REM

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ISEG (Lisbon School of Economics & Management) - Universidade de Lisboa
Rua do Quelhas, 6, 1200-781 Lisboa, Portugal

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Tel.: +351-213 925 800
E-mail: [email protected]

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http://www.iseg.utl.pt/

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UECE (Research Unit on Complexity and Economics)
Rua Miguel Lupi, 20, 1249-078 Lisboa, Portugal
Tel.: +351 - 213 925 912

REM (Research in Economics and Mathematics)


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ABSTRACT
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Based on the actual trading behavior of individual investors in the Portuguese financial market
during almost ten years this paper examines the socio-demographic characteristics of retail investors
in warrants, and discusses the hypothesis that some behavioral biases do have an impact on the
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investors’ predisposition to invest and trade in warrants, a complex financial instrument. One finds
that there is a profile of investors in warrants: younger and less educated men are more likely to
invest in warrants and that overconfident, disposition-prone and investors exhibiting a gambling
attitude are more likely to invest and trade in warrants. Secondly, the gambling motive seems to be
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a distinguishing characteristic of investors in warrants. In other words, when investors are driven to
trade in financial markets for pleasure/fun they tend to trade complex products more and to trade
simple and easier to understand financial instruments less. Finally, the higher the intensity of
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trading the more relevant are the disposition and the gambler’s biases.
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KEYWORDS
Warrants, overconfidence, disposition effect, gambling effect, individual investor behavior
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JEL CODES
G41, G11, G12

1
ISEG - Universidade de Lisboa, Department of Economics; REM (Research in Economics and Mathematics);
UECE (Research Unit on Complexity and Economics), R. Miguel Lupi 20, 1249-078 Lisbon, Portugal, email:
[email protected]. UECE is supported by the Fundacão para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (Portuguese
Foundation for Science and Technology). This article is part of the Strategic Project (UID/ECO/00436/2013).
1. Introduction

In spite of the success that warrants have had in some financial markets, little is

known regarding the profile of those most likely to invest in this complex financial

instrument. This paper looks to define the profile of the investor in warrants and

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searches for non-rational motives that may explain the success of the market for

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warrants among individual investors. Based on the actual trading behavior of individual

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investors in the Portuguese financial market during almost ten years, I examine the

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socio-demographic characteristics of the investors in warrants and discuss the

hypothesis that some behavioral biases influence the individual investors’

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predisposition to invest and trade in warrants. More precisely, I empirically examine
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the hypotheses that overconfidence, the disposition effect and the pleasure of
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gambling have an impact on the participation and trading in warrants, controlling for
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investors’ socio-demographic characteristics. Moreover, I search for profile and


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behavioral biases differences between investors that trade intensely in warrants and

investors that only trade less frequently.


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Overconfidence is probably the most widely studied and well-established

behavioral bias. Generally defined as people’s tendency to overestimate their


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knowledge, abilities and the precision of their information, as well as their capacity to
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estimate and control future events, overconfidence has been defined in different
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dimensions: miscalibration (cf. Lichtenstein et al. 1982, Fischhoff et al. 1977 or Daniel

et al. 1998), better-than-average effect or illusion of control (Thompson, 1999).

Those different dimensions of overconfidence are interconnected. For example,

people who are overconfident about their abilities tend to overestimate their influence

2
over outcomes. For that reason, one could argue that overconfidence is best

apprehended by its consequences. The most widely recognized consequence of

overconfidence is that it induces higher trading volume. Overconfident investors, either

because they overestimate the precision of the information they have, or because they

think they have above average investment skills, trade more than rational investors.

For De Bondt and Thaler (1995) overconfidence is the key behavioral factor needed

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to understand the overtrading puzzle. Odean (1998b) argues that the high level of

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trading volume is the most important effect of overconfidence. Statman et al. (2006)

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presents empirical evidence for the US market and argues that trading volume is

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particularly higher after high returns, as investment success increases the degree of

overconfidence.
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However, the different dimensions of overconfidence do not measure the same
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thing and research shows that they do not induce the same errors in the financial

behavior of individual investors. Investor’s unrealistic tendency to believe that their


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abilities, knowledge and overall capacity to analyze available information are better
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than average may have a particular impact on trading behavior, particularly for

investors with high past performance.


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The intuition behind this argument is that the accumulation of successful

market investments makes investors increasingly overconfident and consequently


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makes them trade more. Due to a self-attribution bias, investors think they are above

average regarding their investment skills. This better than average effect has been
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documented empirically by Glaser and Weber (2007) who provide evidence of a higher

trading propensity by overconfident investors when they identify overconfident

investors as those who think they are better than average in terms of investment skills

3
or past performance. This finding is also consistent with other studies (see Deaves et

al. 2009, Graham et al. 2009).

The disposition effect is another important bias in finance, because it is costly. In

fact, investors who show this bias usually hold poorly diversified portfolios and end up

making bad financial decisions that are contrary to rational models of investment.

Labeled by Shefrin and Statman (1984), the disposition effect describes the tendency

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that investors have to sell securities whose price is rising, the so-called winners, while

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keeping in portfolio securities whose price is declining, the losers.

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Rational motives may justify the disposition effect: portfolio rebalancing and trading

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costs, among others. However, Odean (1998a) finds disposition effect even after

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controlling for portfolio rebalancing and trading costs, and Lakonishok and Smidt
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(1986) considers that the disposition effect dominates tax-related motives for selling
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stocks at a loss. Several other empirical papers have also documented the existence
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of disposition effect (Grinblatt and Keloharju 2001, Shapira and Venezia 2001, Dhar

and Zhu 2006).


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Much of the behavioral finance literature relates the disposition effect to loss

aversion. Investors value a title gain or loss relatively to a reference point, usually the
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purchase price of the asset. When transactions are carried in the financial market,

agents will evaluate their portfolio and whether the assets have appreciated or
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depreciated vis-a-vis the purchase price. Combining the analysis of the reference point

with the fact that investors are risk averse in the domain of gains and risk seekers in
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the domain of losses, it is easy to understand that if the asset price falls and remains

below the reference point, investors, who value losses more than gains, will be averse

to sell that asset for a loss, causing a reduction in the supply of potential sellers. A

losing stock would be considered a loss and being risk-seeker in this domain would

4
cause the investor to hold the stock. However, other behavioral finance justifications

have been added to explain the disposition effect. Barberis and Xiong (2009)

concludes that the investors’ tendency for selling winning stocks too early and holding

losing stocks too long depends on the success of past investments. If past investments

where set at a gain, the agents will be progressively less risk averse and will show

more disposition effect. Muermann and Volkman (2006) focuses on how anticipating

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regret and pride in a dynamic setting may cause investors to optimally follow a strategy

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in which they sell winning stocks and hold losing stocks; that is, on how anticipating

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regret and pride contribute to explain the disposition effect. Summers and Duxbury

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(2012) favors emotion over prospect theory to explain the disposition effect.

The pleasure of gambling is also important to understand individual investors’


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behavior. It refers to the classical hedonic motivational principle that people approach
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pleasure and avoid pain. This pleasure-seeking motivation should be considered in a
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wide context, associated with other types of positive emotions (Proyer 2017 mentions

interest or contentment). Some people trade in financial markets only because trading
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brings the joy of gambling. Dorn and Sengmueller (2009) examines the hypothesis

that entertainment motives drive trading by combining survey responses and


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transaction records for a sample of more than 1,000 clients at one discount broker in

Germany. The authors conclude that although investors do not only trade for
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entertainment purposes, clients classified as potentially entertainment-driven trade

more than their peers. In addition, entertainment-driven investors turn over their
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portfolio of stocks, bonds, funds and options at roughly twice the rate of their peers. In

the same line of reasoning some authors argue that investors who are more prone to

sensation seeking trade more frequently. According to Zuckerman (1994), “sensation

seeking is a trait defined by the seeking of varied, novel, complex, and intense

5
sensations and experiences, and the willingness to take financial risks for the sake of

such experience.”2 As Grinblatt and Keloharju (2009) puts it, for investors prone to

sensation seeking ‘‘the mere act of trading and the monitoring of a constant flow of

‘fresh stocks’ in one’s portfolio may create a more varied and novel experience than a

buy and hold strategy”.3

This study adds to the existing literature on derivative products in some important

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aspects. Firstly, I analyze the relative importance of overconfidence, disposition and

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gambling as drivers for the individual investment and trading in warrants (a complex

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financial product), comparing to the investment and trading in stocks. Secondly, as far

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as I know this is the first study that analyzes whether investors who invest and trade

more frequently have a different profile than other investors who trade less frequently.
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Lastly, unlike most empirical studies the design of this research combines actual
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trading behavior of retail investors with a survey of these investors conducted by a
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securities regulator (the Portuguese securities commission).


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I start out documenting that investors in warrants are indeed different, not only
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because they have specific socio-demographic characteristics but they also reveal

specific behavioral biases. Overconfident investors and investors who exhibit a


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disposition or a gambling attitude are more likely to invest in warrants. Next, investor’s

trading activity is studied and the hypothesis that investors in warrants trade differently
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than investors in stocks is tested. Results show that warrant trading activity increases

with overconfidence, disposition and gambling. The warrant market differs from the
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stock market in the sense that the search for pleasure seems to increase warrant

transactions but decreases stock trading activity. In other words, when investors are

2
Cf. Zuckerman (1994), p.27.
3
Cf. Grinblatt and Keloharju (2009), p.556.

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driven to trade in financial markets for pleasure they tend to trade complex products

more and to trade simple and easier to understand financial instruments less. Finally,

I control for the time span in which the investor is active in the market, splitting

investors according to their intensity of trading. I find that disposition and gambler’s

effects are more relevant to explain the frequency of trading the higher the intensity,

but they are of no help to understand the top quantile traders. High trading frequency

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investors seem to be more heterogeneous and without a clear-cut socio-demographic

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and behavioral profile.

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The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The next section describes

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the databases used and the construction of the behavioral variables used in the paper.

The third section traces the socio-demographic profile of investors in warrants and
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studies the importance of overconfidence, disposition and gambling as determinants
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of the decision to participate in the market for warrants. In section 4 the trading activity
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in stocks and warrants is studied. Section 5 analyses the trading frequency and I
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control for the time span in which investors are active in the market. In the last section
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I draw some final conclusions.


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2. Data and variable construction


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2.1. Data
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The main database used in this study (the trading database) contains information
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from one of the top three Portuguese banks, with a market share of 15% to 20%. The

information relates to all the existing accounts of individual (ie, retail) investors and

includes the demographic data (marital status, birth date, gender, education,

occupation and residence) of the first account holder. In addition, it includes

7
information on all transactions in financial instruments linked to these accounts for the

period 02/01/1997 to 16/09/2006. This information includes the date of the transaction,

the transaction type (purchase or sale), the ISIN code of the financial instrument, the

quantity traded and at what price.

In the period of almost ten years covered by this database, 3,620 investors traded

warrants and 491,540 traded stocks. This means that for every 136 equity investors

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only one traded warrants, which is to say that the market of this derivative instrument

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is composed of a small percentage of the Portuguese population. It is difficult to

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establish a comparison with other countries and jurisdictions, because this kind of

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information is not easily available. Nevertheless, it is possible to compare this

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percentage with the one in Hong-Kong: according to SFC (2006), 12.6% of individual
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investors in Hong-Kong had made transactions in warrants, which is a percentage far
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higher than the Portuguese one. This may reflect the programs of privatization carried
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out by successive governments that led many Portuguese families to invest in the

stock of firms being privatized during this period, as well as the greater complexity of
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warrants (in comparison with stocks) that discourages the investment in this financial

instrument. It is also the result of the late introduction of this derivative instrument in
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Portugal. In fact, detachable warrants came into Portuguese legislation in 1988


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(Decree-Law No. 229-B/88 of July 4): bonds may have detachable warrants, and the
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bondholder has a warrant that confers on him the right to acquire shares at a price

under predetermined conditions. This warrant is detached from the bond and can be
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freely traded on the stock market regardless of the bond it was detached from.

Subsequently, Decree-Law No. 172/99 of May 20 was approved, which was followed

by Regulation No. 19/99 of the CMVM (the Portuguese Securities Supervisor), dated

8
November 10th, both of which established the legal framework of covered warrants.

The first issue of detachable warrants in Portugal was led by the Banco Comercial de

Macau, in 1990, and the first issue of covered warrants was led by Banco Santander

in September 2000 (Mendes 2012).

Thus, it is not surprising that in the period covered by the database the total number

of trades in stocks (more than 3.8 million) is much greater than the total number of

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trades in warrants (slightly above 0.2 million), or that the average number of trades in

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warrants (stocks) per investor is 58.3 (7.8).4 Indeed, many investors had their first

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contact with the stock market following the privatization of state-owned firms, but

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acquired the shares in a purely buy-and-hold strategy or sold them later without having

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invested in new stocks. On the contrary, the greater complexity of warrants may have
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led some investors to specialize in this derivative instrument and, consequently, to be
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much more active, buying and selling on market expectations that they have regarding
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the future prices of the underlying assets.

However, the sample used in the following sections is restricted to less investors.
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Firstly, only investors who trade stocks are selected from the database, and I exclude

investors living abroad. I also exclude what I name ‘curious investors’, that is, investors
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who have only traded once in either stocks or warrants. Some of these equity investors
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also invest and trade in warrants, and after the exclusion of some observations for
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which there is not sufficient information, I end up with a sample of 52,768 stock

investors, off which 1,705 also trade warrants during the period covered by the dataset.
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The activity of warrant investors is illustrated in this smaller sample by the total number

4
In the database used by Schmitz et al. (2007) the average investor made 55 transactions in warrants. However,
the time period covered is only 51 months, shorter than the one used here.

9
of stock trades (743,340) which is more than 7 times higher than the total number of

trades in warrants (102,314); the average number of trades per investor is 79.0 trades

in warrants and only 13.6 trades in stocks (the maximum is 3,374 and 2,232 trades in

warrants and stocks, respectively).

A different database is also used. It comes from a survey conducted by CMVM

to identify the characteristics of Portuguese individual investors.5 The most recent one

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was conducted in 2000, and was publicly released in May 2005 on the CMVM website.

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More than fifteen thousand individuals were contacted between 2 October and 22

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December 2000 using the direct interview technique. These individuals were

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responsible or co-responsible for the investment decisions within the family. All the

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identified investors in securities (1,559) were interviewed using a structured
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questionnaire. Each questionnaire included socio-demographic questions, questions
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related to the nature and type of the assets held and investor experience, but there
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are no questions related to the size of the portfolio, nor the amounts invested in each

type of asset. There are also questions related to investor’s trading behavior
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(frequency of transactions, sources of information used, etc.) and to investor’s

knowledge about markets and market players. This database is used to compute
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proxies for the better than average and the gambling attitude towards the investment

in derivatives variables.
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5
The survey identifies an investor in securities as one holding one or more of the following assets: stocks, bonds,
mutual funds, participation certificates and derivatives.

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2.2. Behavioral variables

Two approaches are used to deal with the overconfidence issue. Firstly, the

approach of Goetzmann and Kumar (2008) and Bailey et al. (2008) is followed, and

an investor is considered overconfident if his trading activity is in the top quartile of the

distribution on investors’ trading activity (i.e., are in the upper quartile of the number

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of trades in stocks) and his performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of

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investors’ stock returns. This definition is based on the idea that overconfident

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investors trade too much and consequently get lower returns for their investments

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(Odean 1999, Barber and Odean 2000). The variable so defined is labeled

OVERCONFIDENCE.

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Alternatively, I also use the better than average concept. Overconfident investors
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are defined as those who believe that they know more than they actually do, this being
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measured by the difference, if positive, between self-reported financial knowledge and
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actual financial knowledge. The self-reported financial knowledge variable is based on

the survey question: “How do you rate, on a 1 (very low) to 7 (very high) scale, your
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own knowledge of financial assets and markets?”. Investors’ answers to this question
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are compared with an actual knowledge variable measured in the 1 to 7 scale, which

comes out of the survey as well.


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Three of the survey questions (questions 7, 11 combined with 11A, and 13) are
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used to compute investors’ actual knowledge. In the survey, investors are asked to

name companies with shares or bonds listed, up to a maximum number of 5 (question


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7). Responses to this answer are marked from 0 to 5, 0 meaning that investor fails to

mention the name of any company, and 5 that he correctly named 5 companies with

shares or bonds listed. In question 11A (and in question 11) investors are asked

11
whether they know any of the following entities: BVLP, Interbolsa, CMVM, Credit

Institutions, Dealers. Again, answers are marked from 0 to 5, with 0 meaning that

investors are unaware of these entities and 5 that they know them all. Finally, question

13 is the following: “If you wish to file a complaint about a financial intermediary, an

issuer or any other entity related with the securities markets, to whom would you

address it?” Answers are marked with 5 if CMVM is mentioned and with 0 if no entity

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(or a wrong one) is identified. The unweighted average of the answers obtained to

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these three questions, converted to the 1 to 7 scale, is used as a proxy for the actual

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knowledge of individual investors, higher values meaning that investors have a better

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understanding of financial markets.

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If the difference between the self-reported and the actual knowledge is positive

and greater than 0.9 then BETTER THAN AVERAGE = 1.6 I follow Graham et al.
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A
(2009) and construct an empirical model for this variable: I regress BETTER THAN

AVERAGE on a set of socio-demographic investor characteristics, using the investors’


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characteristics from the CMVM survey. In a second step, the estimated coefficients of
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this linear probability model (LPM) are used to predict whether investors in the trading

database are (are not) better than average. I now use the socio-demographic investor
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characteristics from the trading database and the estimated LPM coefficients to

estimate whether investors are better than average, again using an LPM model.
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Assuming that the percentage of investors with this bias in the trading database is

equal to the percentage of better than average investors in the survey, BETTER THAN
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6
Different limits were used and the results are robust.

12
AVERAGE = 1 for the investors with the higher score in the model estimated in the

second step of the procedure.7

To access the hedonic motive for investment I construct the GAMBLING variable,

with a procedure similar to that of the better than average variable. Investors are

considered to have a gambling attitude towards the investment in financial markets

when they do not get any information regarding financial markets and products and

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yet they trade financial instruments, whichever they are. From the CMVM’s survey the

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socio-demographic characteristics of the investors who do not use any source of

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information to get informed on financial markets and products are analyzed, and I

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assume that these investors do have a gambling attitude because they invest and

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trade in financial instruments without getting any information on financial markets and
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products. Firstly, this gambling variable is regressed on a set of socio-demographic

characteristics of investors, using the investor’s characteristics from the survey. In a


A
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second step, the estimated coefficients of this model are used to predict which

investors in the transactions database have a gambling attitude. Assuming that the
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percentages of investors with a gambling attitude are similar in the survey and in the

main trading database, GAMBLING = 1 for the investors with the higher scores in the
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estimated gambling LPM model from the second step.8

As regards the DISPOSITION proxy, I follow the Goetzmann and Massa (2008)
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methodology. Firstly, each transaction in stocks is classified as “trade at loss” or “trade

at gain”.9 Then, for each stock in the portfolio, a time series of the trades (sales and
A

7
Graham et al. (2009) use ordered logit and logit regressions. Differently from them, I use an LPM model and
convert the predicted variables into binary variables. In so doing I diminish the eventual collinearity between
the predicted variables and the investor characteristics. Moreover, as a robustness exercise, I orthogonalize the
socio-demographic variables so that collinearity does not impact empirical results. Results (not reported) are
essentially unchanged.
8
The procedure described in footnote 6 is also used.
9
I assume a LIFO criterion (the last shares bought are the first ones to be sold) to identify sales at loss.

13
buys) at loss and trades at gain is constructed. For example, when a sale happens, I

compute the difference between the sell price and the price at which the previous

purchase of that stock occurred. Negative differences (sale price lower than the buy

price) are recorded as sale at loss, and positive differences as sale at gain. Buys are

treated in a similar fashion; in these cases the price that occurred in the previous trade

of the same stock (regardless of it being a sale or a purchase) is used as the reference

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price. Given that disposition investors tend to sell winning stocks (that is, sell at gain)

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and buy losing stocks (that is, buy at loss), for each stock I compute the ratio between

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buys at loss plus sells at gain minus sells at loss minus buys at gain, standardized by

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the sum of buy at loss, buy at gain, sell at loss and sell at gain. Adding up for all stocks

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in the portfolio, if this ratio is positive, then the investor exhibits disposition effect, and
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if not positive the investor dos not exhibit disposition effect. Thus, DISPOSITION = 1
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if that ratio is positive, and zero otherwise.
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3. The participation decision


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I use a probit model to distinguish the characteristics of investors who traded in

both warrants and stocks from those who only traded stocks (that is, the decision to
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participate in the market for warrants). The base probit model is the following:
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Warrant = f (Male, Age, Married, Education, Job, Place of Residence)


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where10:
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10
I do not include wealth or income variables because the database does not have any information directly linked
to these variables, thus preventing the inclusion of these aspects in the model.

14
 Warrant is a binary variable, equal to 1 if the investor trades in warrants during

the period, and zero otherwise (that is, the investor trades in stocks but not in

warrants);

 Male is a gender variable, equal to 1 if the investor is male;

 Age is the age of the investor in years, defined as (2006 minus the year of birth

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of the account holder);

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 Married is the marital status of the investor, and is equal to 1 if he/she is married;

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 Education is the level of education. Three categories are considered: Low = 1,

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if the investor has 4 or less years of education; Intermediate = 1, if the investor

has more than 4 but 12 or less years of education; High = 1, if a technical or

higher course was completed by the investor;


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N
A
 Job represents the occupation of the investor. Five categories are considered:
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Highly skilled = 1, if the investor is a business manager, director or is in the

upper levels of public administration; Skilled = 1, if the investor is an office work


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or similar; Low skill = 1, if farmer, industrial worker, mechanic or non-qualified

worker; Independent workers = 1, if the investor is a liberal professional (that


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is, works but does not have a tenured position in a company); and Inactive = 1,
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if the investor is retired, unemployed or student;


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 Place of Residence represents the region of residence of the investor. Three

categories are considered: Lisbon = 1 if the investor lives in Lisbon; Porto = 1


A

if living in Porto; Other = 1 if the investor does not live in Lisbon or in Porto.11

11
Four or less years of education, inactive workers (mostly retired), and residence outside Lisbon and Porto are
the omitted categories in all the regressions.

15
The literature considers that more risk-tolerant behavior is associated with

younger investors who do not have family responsibilities within marriage, and that

more qualified professions are generally associated with a higher income level and

thus permit taking higher risks. In fact, it has been shown that investors’ behavior

depends on socio-demographic characteristics: age (DaSilva and Giannikos 2006),

occupation (Christiansen et al. 2008) or the environment in which they live

T
(Goetzmann and Kumar 2008). Barber and Odean (2001) and Goetzmann and Kumar

IP
(2008), for example, report evidence that married investors, women and older

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investors have less appetite for risk. On the other hand, higher levels of education

SC
have been positively associated with greater sophistication. Related to this literature,

recent works on financial literacy show that the higher the individual knowledge, the
U
more efficient and rational will be her/his financial behavior, such as planning and
N
saving for retirement (Lusardi and Mitchell 2017), investing in the stock market
A

(Christelis et al. 2010) or diversifying portfolio (Abreu and Mendes 2010).


M

Calvet et al. (2009) concludes that seemingly irrational behavior diminishes


ED

substantially with investor sophistication. I attempt to control for investors’ income by

controlling for their job (the closest proxy for income insofar as neither the survey nor
PT

the trading database have an income or wealth variable). To that end, dummy

variables are used to identify inactive investors, INACTIVE, investors with a highly
E
CC

skilled job, HIGHLY SKILLED, those with a skilled job, SKILLED, those with low skilled

jobs, LOW SKILL, and investors who are professional liberals, INDEPENDENT
A

WORKERS. Investor’s residence is also controlled for since investors who live in the

metropolitan areas are usually more educated, are more likely to be wealthier and

employed in the financial sector and consequently to have access to better quality

information. Thus, I distinguish investors who reside in Lisbon, LISBON, from those

16
who reside in Porto, PORTO, which are the two largest Portuguese cities, from

investors who reside elsewhere, OTHER.

The probit model is estimated by maximum likelihood, and the results are in

Table 1. The results of the base model (column [1]) confirm that investors in warrants

and investors in stocks do have different socio-demographic characteristics. In fact,

younger and less educated men are more likely to invest in warrants, and investors

T
with higher skilled jobs are more likely to invest only in stocks. As regards residence,

IP
living in the largest cities does not allow any discrimination between investors in stocks

R
and in warrants. Marital status is not a distinguishing factor as well.

SC
In columns [2] and [3] of Table 1 I introduce the behavioral characteristics of

U
investors (overconfidence, better than average, disposition and gambling).
N
Overconfidence can lead investors to trade financial instruments in which they are not
A
accurately familiar with. Overconfident investors have been associated with excessive
M

risk taking (Dorn and Huberman 2005; Nosic and Weber 2010), and this means that

they are more prone to take on risk for which there is no apparent reward. Also,
ED

overconfident investors tend to think they are above average regarding their

investment skills (Taylor and Brown 1988) and consequently may invest more in
PT

complex financial instruments.


E
CC
A

17
Table 1: The Participation Decision (Probit Model)
[1] [2] [3]
Male 0.256 *** 0.089 ** 0.083 *
8.80 2.12 1.95
Age -0.013 *** -0.020 *** -0.020 ***
-3.05 -4.34 -4.35
Age squared 0.0000 0.0001 *** 0.0001 ***
1.18 2.80 2.76
Married -0.008 0.071 * 0.072 **
-0.29 1.93 1.97
High education -0.125 ** -0.066 -0.078

T
-2.37 -1.09 -1.28
Intermediate educ. -0.105 *** -0.074 ** -0.067 *

IP
-3.43 -2.04 -1.84
Highly skilled -0.112 *** -0.106 * -0.108 **

R
-2.87 -1.93 -1.96
Skilled -0.344 *** -0.341 *** -0.345 ***

SC
-5.82 -5.12 -5.18
Low skill 0.044 -0.017 -0.029
1.09 -0.37 -0.61
Independent workers -0.043 -0.078 -0.099 *

Lisbon
-1.13
0.020 U-1.46
0.050
-1.79
0.032
N
0.83 1.41 0.87
Porto -0.006 0.094 0.085
A
-0.17 1.57 1.43
Overconfidence 0.109 ***
M

2.58
Better than average -0.049
-1.27
Disposition 0.528 *** 0.531 ***
ED

16.84 17.01
Gambling 0.084 * 0.077 *
1.75 1.64
Low return 0.050 0.095
PT

***
1.49 3.46

Nº obs with Y=1 1702 1702 1702


E

Nº observations 52767 52767 52767


LR stat. 313 1677 1672
CC

Prob. 0.00 0.00 0.00


Obs: (i) z-stats in italics; (ii) *, ** and *** denote statistical significance
at 10%, 5% and 1% respectively; (iii) the models include a constant as well.
This table reports the estimation results of the probit participation model. The dependent variable is Warrant, a binary variable equal to 1
A

if the investor trades warrants in the period, and 0 otherwise. Among the independent variables, male is a gender variable (equal to 1 if
male, 0 otherwise), age is the age of the investor, married is marital status (equal to 1 if married, 0 otherwise), high education is 1 if a
technical or higher course was completed by the investor, intermediate educ is 1 if the investor has more than 4 but 12 or less years of
education, highly skilled is 1 if the investor has a highly skilled job, skilled is 1 if the investor has a skilled job, low skill is 1 if the investor has
a low skilled job, independent workers is 1 if the investor is a professional liberal, lisboa is 1 if the investor resides in Lisboa, porto is 1 if the
investor resides in Porto, overconfidence is 1 if the investor’s trading activity is in the top quartile of the distribution on investors’ trading
activity and the investor’s performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of investors’ stock returns, disposition is 1 if the investor
exhibits disposition effect, and low return is 1 if the investor’s return on stocks traded is in the lowest quartil of returns. Better than average
and gambling are binary variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-White standard errors.

18
The disposition effect, defined as the tendency to sell winning stocks too early while

riding losing stocks too long, has also been considered to have an impact on the

trading behavior of individual investors, and is a case of reference point dependent

behavior since investors behave differently when they are in the gain zone than when

they are in the loss zone. The disposition effect has been found in retail as well as in

professional investors, and it has been found in stock (Odean 1998b, Grinblatt and

T
Keloharju 2001, Dhar and Zhu 2006, for example) and in mutual fund investors (Bailey

IP
et al. 2011). I consider that disposition-prone investors may also adjust their behavior

R
as regards the investment in warrants, a complex financial instrument.12 Thus, if an

SC
investor exhibits disposition effect in his/her stock trading activity then this behavioral

bias may also have an impact on the decision to participate in the market for warrants.
U
N
The DISPOSITION variable is the proxy I use; it is a binary variable, equal to one if
A
the investor exhibits disposition behavior in the stock trading activity, and zero
M

otherwise.

Similarly, recent research postulates that some investors view trading in the stock
ED

market as an opportunity to gamble. Barber et al. (2009), for example, document that,

in Taiwan, the introduction of the government-sponsored lottery did significantly reduce


PT

the stock market turnover, and the authors conclude that part of the excessive trading
E

of individual investors is motivated by their gambling desire. It has also been argued
CC

that gambling may justify investors’ irrationality when they opt for derivative products.

In fact, retail investors may decide not to be informed about product complexity and
A

thus choose randomly with the help of commission-based incentivized distributors,

which provides a rationale for product overpricing (Bernard et al. 2009). Campbell

12
Ofir and Wiener (2016) conclude that structured retail products are designed to capture investor biased
behavior such as the disposition effect.

19
(2006), on the other hand, argues that either investors make random decisions or

product distributors are very successful in marketing and selling. Nicolaus (2010) finds

a pattern of observations that is likely to be driven by speculative purposes. One way

to account for the investors’ gambling desire is to consider that investors who do not

use any source of information at all (i.e., they are not informed about financial markets

and instruments) are gamblers and make random decisions. The GAMBLING variable

T
is the proxy used; it is a binary variable, equal to one if the investor does not use any

IP
source to get information about financial markets and instruments.

R
The hypothesis that the investor’s performance in the stock market influences

SC
the investment in warrants is also tested. Mendes (2012) argues that investors with

U
low success in the investment in stocks are more likely to invest in more leveraged
N
products (that is, warrants) in an attempt to recover losses suffered. Thus, a binary
A
variable is defined for the lower quartile of performance of equity investments.
M

However, information on the composition of the portfolio of each investor is not

available, and the methodology of Seru et al. (2010) (also used in Mendes 2012, and
ED

Abreu et al. 2011) is followed. Therefore, the performance of investors is measured by

the 30-day unweighted average return of the stocks purchased by the investor.
PT

Accordingly, the variable LOW RETURN is a dummy variable equal to 1 if the


E

investor’s return on the investment in stocks is in the lowest quartile of returns.13


CC

I conclude that overconfident investors are indeed more likely to invest in

warrants, but the better than average effect does not have a significant impact. This is
A

consistent with Coval and Shumway (2005) findings on future traders. Overly wedded

13
Related to this literature, Merkle and Weber (2014) claim that expectations are relevant to explain changes in
the risky portfolio of individual investors. Nevertheless, I do not have information on investors’ expectations and
cannot include this into the analysis.

20
to prior beliefs, an overconfident investor may discount negative public information that

pushes down prices, thus holding on and taking on excessive risk.

As regards the impact of disposition, its effect is quite strong and I conclude

that investors who exhibit disposition effect in their stock trading activity are more likely

to invest and trade in warrants. This result is in line with the findings of Ofir and Wiener

(2016); using an experiment, the authors find evidence of the prevalence of the

T
disposition effect on investors’ decision-making regarding structured retail products.

IP
Regarding the possibility that some individuals may participate in the stock (and

R
derivatives) market because of their risk-loving attitude, albeit not very strong from a

SC
statistical standpoint, the gambling attitude seems to lead more investors to participate

U
in the warrants market, and this is evidence of a behavioral bias in the market for this
N
complex financial instrument.
A
One should also notice the high statistical significance on the LOW RETURN
M

variable in the model with the better than average effect, and its lack of statistical

significance (although with a positive coefficient) in the model with the


ED

OVERCONFIDENCE variable. This could be the result of its correlation with the latter

variable.14 Nevertheless, one can conclude that there is evidence that investors with
PT

low success from the investment in stocks are more likely to invest in warrants. This

suggests that the investment in warrants (and similarly the investment in other
E
CC

derivative instruments) may be an attempt to compensate for the losses investors incur

when investing in stocks.


A

14
The OVERCONFIDENCE variable combines lower returns with higher trading activity.

21
4. Trading activity

The decision to participate in the warrants market is one of the decisions an

investor makes. Conditioned to this decision, in a second step the investor decides on

whether to trade more or to trade less. In Portugal, both the stock market and the

warrants market can be considered liquid markets. One may recall that warrants are

T
a financial instrument with a large success in Portugal, and investors traded warrants

IP
very actively (Mendes 2012). Thus, liquidity does not seem to be a clear distinguishing

R
factor of the stock and the warrant markets.

SC
In this section I study whether investors trade stocks differently than warrants. For

this purpose, the number of trades each investor makes in either stocks or warrants is

U
used. I am interested in the impact of behavioral biases on the trading activity of
N
individual investors in both types of financial instruments.
A
Thus, the model’s dependent variable is the number of trades in warrants (or
M

stocks) an investor makes during the sample period. This is a count model, in which

the independent variables are those from the previous section. I use a negative
ED

binomial count model, estimated by maximum likelihood. Results are in Table 2, and
PT

both proxies for overconfidence are tested.

A quick look at the results reported in Table 2 (models [6] and [7]) allows one
E

to conclude that warrant trading is influenced by investors’ socio-demographic


CC

characteristics and behavioral traits. In fact, education, occupation and age do not

have a linear impact on the number of trades: investors with an intermediate academic
A

degree trade more warrants, investors with highly qualified occupations have a trading

activity similar to that of inactive investors, and in both cases they trade more than

skilled, low skilled and independent workers. Also, investors living in Lisbon trade

22
warrants more often. Nevertheless, gender and marital status are not relevant to

explain the number of trades in warrants these investors make.

Regarding the behavioral determinants of trading, results show that

overconfidence has a positive impact on trading, this variable being significant at the

10% level, but the better than average proxy is not. Therefore, there is slight evidence

that overconfident investors do trade more often. The disposition proxy is significant

T
(at the 5% level), as it is for the stock trading case (models [4] and [5]). Nevertheless,

IP
this coefficient is smaller in models [6] and [7], which means that the impact of the

R
disposition effect is lower when investors trade warrants than when they trade stocks.

SC
However, the most interesting finding is related to the sign of the gambling coefficient:

U
it is positive (negative) for the warrants (stocks) case, meaning that the gambling
N
motivated trading is more pronounced in the trading of these derivative instruments.
A
Moreover, the coefficient of the gambling variable is higher than the coefficients of the
M

other behavioral variables. This clearly distinguishes the warrant from the stock market

activity, meaning that the search for pleasure in trading increases warrant transactions
ED

but instead it decreases the stock trading activity. In other words, when investors are

driven for pleasure to trade in financial markets they tend to trade complex products
PT

more and to trade simpler and easier to understand financial instruments less.

Finally, although the participation in the warrants market is driven by the


E
CC

existence of lower returns obtained in the investment in stocks, the number of trades

in warrants does not depend on the lower success of that investment.


A

23
Table 2: Trading activity – Count model
Trades in Trades in Trades in Trades in
Stocks Stocks Warrants Warrants
[4] [5] [6] [7]
Male 0.351 *** 0.346 *** -0.101 -0.063
30.00 29.98 -0.63 -0.39
Age 0.027 *** 0.026 *** 0.143 *** 0.145 ***
14.27 14.00 7.67 7.75
Age squared -0.0002 *** -0.0002 *** -0.0015 *** -0.0014 ***
-11.35 -11.19 -7.86 -7.82
Married 0.022 ** 0.023 ** 0.072 0.023

T
2.07 2.15 0.53 0.17
High education -0.176 *** -0.181 *** -0.121 -0.040

IP
-8.64 -9.08 -0.52 -0.17
Intermediate educ. -0.134 *** -0.128 *** 0.255 ** 0.227 *

R
-10.22 -9.97 2.04 1.82
Highly skilled 0.025 * 0.030 * -0.182 -0.101

SC
1.65 1.95 -0.94 -0.53
Skilled -0.263 *** -0.258 *** -0.976 *** -0.910 ***
-12.50 -12.26 -3.97 -3.69
Low skill -0.110 *** -0.112 *** -0.787 *** -0.717 ***

Independent workers
-6.25
0.015
-6.45
0.001 U -4.71
-0.761 ***
-4.31
-0.592 ***
N
0.88 0.09 -3.88 -3.14
Lisbon 0.033 *** 0.013 0.324 ** 0.429 ***
A
2.70 1.19 2.34 3.39
Porto 0.082 *** 0.054 *** 0.109 0.140
M

5.51 3.91 0.47 0.61


Overconfidence 0.231 *** 0.246 *
12.72 1.78
ED

Better than average 0.044 *** -0.304


3.01 -1.21
Disposition 0.931 *** 0.935 *** 0.318 ** 0.331 **
78.73 79.10 2.40 2.50
PT

Gambling -0.068 *** -0.081 *** 0.340 ** 0.391 **


-3.42 -4.05 2.05 2.38

Low return -0.191 *** -0.261 *** 0.024 -0.090


E

-17.34 -21.34 0.24 -0.81

Nº observations 52767 52767 1702 1702


CC

LR stat. 1666999 1667157 332031 332029


Prob. 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Obs: (i) z-stats in italics; (ii) *, ** and *** denote statistical significance at 10%, 5% and 1% respectively;
A

(iii) the models include a constant as well.


This table reports the estimation results of the negative binomial count model, estimated by maximum likelihood. The dependent variable
the number of trades in warrants (or stocks) an investor makes during the sample period. Among the independent variables, male is a gender
variable (equal to 1 if male, 0 otherwise), age is the age of the investor, married is marital status (equal to 1 if married, 0 otherwise), high
education is 1 if a technical or higher course was completed by the investor, intermediate educ is 1 if the investor has more than 4 but 12
or less years of education, highly skilled is 1 if the investor has a highly skilled job, skilled is 1 if the investor has a skilled job, low skill is 1 if
the investor has a low skilled job, independent workers is 1 if the investor is a professional liberal, lisboa is 1 if the investor resides in Lisboa,
porto is 1 if the investor resides in Porto, overconfidence is 1 if the investor’s trading activity is in the top quartile of the distribution on
investors’ trading activity and the investor’s performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of investors’ stock returns, disposition
is 1 if the investor exhibits disposition effect, and low return is 1 if the investor’s return on stocks traded is in the lowest quartil of returns.

24
Better than average and gambling are binary variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-
White standard errors.

T
R IP
SC
U
N
A
M
ED
E PT
CC
A

25
In what regards the stock market, models [4] and [5] allow one to conclude that

there are differences in the socio-demographic determinants of the stock and of the

warrants trading activity. Less educated, highly skilled men trade stocks more

frequently, and the effect of age is non-linear. Marital status does seem to play a role,

and as for the place of residence, investors from Lisbon and Porto seem to trade more

in stocks than other investors. This set of results differs from those reported by Abreu

T
and Mendes (2012). In fact, using a survey of the Portuguese population (not actual

IP
transactions data), Abreu and Mendes (2012) conclude that gender, education and

R
occupation were not distinctive factors of the trading activity of Portuguese investors.

SC
As for overconfidence and the better than average effect, both proxies are highly

U
significant and with a positive sign, meaning that overconfident investors trade stocks
N
more often and that those who feel they are better than average also trade stocks
A
more often. This result is in line with the findings of Odean (1998b), Barber and Odean
M

(2001), Glaser and Weber (2007), Deaves et al. (2009), and Graham et al. (2009),

among others.
ED

Disposition-prone investors also trade stocks more often. One characteristic of

investors who have this behavioral bias is that they hold on too long to the stocks in
PT

the portfolio in down markets, and sell them too soon in up markets, thus not taking

full advantage of the existing opportunities in the market. The sample period includes
E
CC

two bull market sub-periods (1997/2000 and 2002/2006) and one bear market sub-

period (2000/2002), and thus disposition-motivated trading could be more intense by


A

these investors not only because there is only one down sub-period but also because

the bull market sub-periods are lengthier than the bear sub-period.

Gambling and low returns lead to lower stock trading activity: the coefficients of both

variables are statistically significant and negative, meaning that gamblers trade stocks

26
less often and that lower returns on the investment in stocks also leads investors to

be less active in the stock market.

5. Trading frequency

The number of trades was the dependent variable in the previous section, but this

T
dependent variable does not account for the period of time in which the investor is

IP
active in the market. To control for the time span in which investors are active in the

R
market I now consider that the investors’ trading activity starts when the investor

SC
makes the first trade, and assume she is active all the way to the last day of the

sample. The objective is to look at the trading frequency computing the average

U
number of warrant trades per year, which is the new dependent variable (in logs). The
N
independent variables are all the same as in the previous section, and this new model
A
is estimated by OLS.
M

Additionally, I search for heterogeneity among investors. Investors with a high


ED

frequency of trading may have a different profile and motives to trade than investors

that only trade sporadically. Thereafter, a quantile regression approach is used to


PT

document if the number of trades in warrants per year responds differently to variations

in the variables which are expected to affect trading.


E

Contrary to least squares regression where all of the inferences pertain only to the
CC

mean trading frequency, quantile regression techniques allow one to study the impact

of each covariate along the whole distribution and not just the mean, and thus the
A

estimation of the impact of investors’ heterogeneity upon trading frequency.

27
Table 3 Trading frequency in warrants – Quantile regression
Quant. Quant. Quant. Quant. Quant.
OLS
10 25 50 75 90
[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]

Male 0.004 -0.001 -0.032 0.012 0.120 0.112


0.03 -0.02 -0.26 0.07 0.45 0.39

Age -0.008 -0.038 *** -0.060 *** -0.009 0.011 0.043


-0.38 -3.43 -2.95 -0.03 0.29 0.94

T
Age squared -0.0002 0.0003 *** 0.0003 * -0.0003 -0.0005 -0.0007

IP
-1.11 2.61 1.67 -0.94 -1.35 -1.52

Married 0.085 -0.026 0.001 0.301 ** 0.059 0.043

R
0.75 -0.35 0.01 1.95 0.27 0.17

SC
High education 0.245 0.127 0.343 0.366 0.333 0.049
0.97 0.77 1.45 1.23 0.61 0.09

Intermediate educ. 0.156


1.17
0.131
1.31
0.315
2.22 U
** 0.145
0.76
-0.047
-0.21
0.004
0.01
N
Highly skilled -0.332 ** -0.097 -0.309 * -0.602 *** -0.366 -0.017
A
-2.02 -0.84 -1.92 -2.66 -1.15 -0.05
M

Skilled -0.505 * -0.078 -0.457 * -0.615 * -0.267 -0.377


-1.84 -0.47 -1.93 -1.72 -0.62 -0.74

** ** *
ED

Low skill -0.366 0.051 -0.191 -0.407 -0.564 -0.528


-2.14 0.38 -1.07 -1.98 -1.70 -1.48

Independent workers -0.264 -0.051 -0.253 -0.335 -0.337 -0.324


PT

-1.55 -0.41 -1.48 -1.61 -0.97 -0.95

Lisbon 0.242 * 0.076 0.284 ** 0.432 ** 0.273 0.177


E

1.81 0.90 2.42 2.56 0.96 0.70


CC

Porto 0.091 -0.024 0.002 0.232 0.256 -0.261


0.57 -0.23 0.01 1.07 0.91 -0.95

Better than average -0.062 -0.047 -0.078 0.043 -0.064 -0.293


A

-0.39 -0.45 -0.52 0.22 -0.22 -0.78

Disposition 0.533 *** 0.003 0.251 ** 0.893 *** 0.915 *** 0.386
3.70 0.04 2.20 5.17 3.19 1.35

* * ** ***
Gambling 0.305 0.279 0.549 0.687 0.283 0.035

28
1.65 1.73 2.29 2.75 0.87 0.10

Low return 0.105 0.169 ** 0.278 *** 0.201 -0.014 -0.203


0.93 2.15 2.61 1.41 -0.07 -0.86

Adj R2 / Quasi-LR stat. 7.56% 52.40 146.70 138.10 72.00 33.10

F-stat / Prob. 8.7 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.11


Obs: (i) t-stats in italics; (ii) *, ** and *** denote statistical significance at 10%, 5% and 1% respectively;
(iii) the models include a constant as well.

This table reports the estimation results of the OLS and quantile regressions. The dependent variable is the log of the average number of
warrant trades per year the investor makes. Among the independent variables, male is a gender variable (equal to 1 if male, 0 otherwise),

T
age is the age of the investor, married is marital status (equal to 1 if married, 0 otherwise), high education is 1 if a technical or higher course
was completed by the investor, intermediate educ is 1 if the investor has more than 4 but 12 or less years of education, highly skilled is 1 if

IP
the investor has a highly skilled job, skilled is 1 if the investor has a skilled job, low skill is 1 if the investor has a low skilled job, independent
workers is 1 if the investor is a professional liberal, lisboa is 1 if the investor resides in Lisboa, porto is 1 if the investor resides in Porto,
overconfidence is 1 if the investor’s trading activity is in the top quartile of the distribution on investors’ trading activity and the investor’s
performance is in the bottom quartile of the distribution of investors’ stock returns, disposition is 1 if the investor exhibits disposition effect,

R
and low return is 1 if the investor’s return on stocks traded is in the lowest quartil of returns. Better than average and gambling are binary
variables, estimated using investor characteristics (gender, age, education, income). Huber-Sandwich standard errors.

SC
Results of the OLS estimation and of the quantile regression model are shown
U
N
in Table 3, where one can confirm the superiority of the quantile regression approach

for it allows the discrimination of investors.15 If one is left with the OLS estimates we
A
M

would be (wrongly) assigning all investors the same impact of the independent

variables, which is not the case. Additionally, the best estimation results (measured by
ED

the number of coefficients with statistical significance) are those for the quantiles 25

and 50 of the (log of) annual number of trades in warrants. Investors who trade
PT

warrants less frequently (quantile 10) as well as those who trade this derivative more

frequently (quantile 90) are quite heterogeneous, and no clear socio-demographic


E
CC

characteristics emerge. Among those with more intensive trading one cannot find any

distinguishing characteristic: in fact, none of the explanatory variables is significant in


A

quantile 90, not even at the 10% significance level. Another very interesting result is

that, for most of the statistically significant variables, their impact on the (log of) the

15
The results of the estimation of the models with the OVERCONFIDENCE variable are not presented in order to
save space, but they are essentially similar to the ones presented in this Table 3.

29
average number of trades in warrants increases with the average number of trades of

the investor.

Disposition and gambler’s biases are significant determinants of trading for

intermediate quantiles. Results show that, when statistically significant, the

coefficients of the disposition and the gambler variables increase with trading

frequency, which means that the impact of these behavioral biases is stronger for

T
investors who trade warrants more frequently. For the disposition coefficient, investors

IP
with the 75% higher average number of trades per year do have a highly significant

R
0.915 coefficient whilst those with the 25% lowest average number of trades exhibit a

SC
0.251 coefficient. Thus, up to a certain level of trading intensity, the impact of the

U
disposition and gambling biases increases with the intensity of trading.
N
A
6. Concluding remarks
M

This paper examines the socio-demographic characteristics of retail investors in


ED

warrants, and discusses the hypothesis that some behavioral biases do have an

impact on the investors’ predisposition to invest and trade in warrants, a complex


PT

financial instrument. Amongst the most relevant conclusions of this empirical

application, one finds that the socio-demographic and behavioral characteristics of


E
CC

investors in warrants are different from those of investors in stocks. Firstly, investors

in warrants have a particular socio-demographic profile: younger and less educated


A

men are more likely to invest in warrants. Secondly, investors’ behavioral biases are

particularly relevant to understand investor’s participation in the market of this complex

financial instrument. In fact, overconfident and disposition-prone investors as well as

investors exhibiting a gambling attitude are more likely to invest and trade in warrants.

30
Moreover, disposition-prone investors are more likely to trade warrants more

frequently.

Secondly, there is a distinguishing characteristic of investors who trade warrants:

the gambling motive increases warrant transactions but decreases the stock trading

activity among these investors. In other words, when investors are driven to trade in

financial markets for pleasure they tend to trade complex products more and to trade

T
simple and easier to understand financial instruments less.

IP
Finally, the quantile analyses show that the disposition and the gambler’s effect are

R
the more relevant to explain the frequency of trading the higher the intensity of trading,

SC
except for high trading frequency investors who seem to be heterogeneous and

U
without a clear cut social-demographic and behavioral profile.
N
A
M
ED
E PT
CC
A

31
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